What does the House of Lords communications committee expect to discover in its inquiry into "media ownership and the news"? Initially, it's calling for evidence on whether media ownership has affected the balance and diversity of news provision, and also changes in the way news is accessed and provided.

Then, in the second phase of its inquiry, the committee will consider the concentration of media ownership, cross-media ownership and the regulatory framework. I wonder whether they are going about this in the right order. Surely you cannot answer question one without having sorted out the first two parts of phase two.

Anyway, here is every interested party's chance to take part. Written evidence is being requested. Then the committee, chaired by Lord Fowler, will decide who should make oral submissions. It is hoping to publish its findings in a report early next year.

I can't help wondering whether Fowler has already made up his mind. He is quoted as saying: "There has been an increasing concentration of ownership in the media. We want to examine if this has had an effect upon news provision. There are important public interest factors here. In a democracy it is vital to have as wide a diversity of news as possible."

He points out that there has been little work "investigating the impact of ownership on editorial priorities such as fairness, accuracy and impartiality."

Who, you may ask, is the noble lord? Well, Norman Fowler was a member of Margaret's Thatcher's cabinet in various departments, and he was later Tory party chairman for a couple of years. Prior to his political career he was a journalist and, for a while, he was chairman of Midland Independent Newspapers until it was acquired by Trinity Mirror in 1997. So, in that instance, a big fish did swallow a smaller one.

Get writing then, all you who fear the big media whales scooping up the plankton. I'm certainly going to offer a submission.